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for lunch. He had Elsie fix him a sandwich made from some of last night’s leftover roast meat and ate while reading some work documents. Candice didn’t want to disturb him so she just sat quietly. After he had eaten, he looked up from the paperwork, looked at Candice, and then took her by the hand and led her to his bedroom. They had sex before he left again to go back to work. He didn’t even speak to her. Candice felt a little bit used. She wasn’t sure if she had any right to feel that way.
    When Sienna and Crystal came home that afternoon, Candice was there to meet them. She was looking forward to seeing them, but she found herself needing some courage to face them and had drunk quite a lot after her lunchtime rendezvous with Marcus. It threw her a little, his attitude at lunchtime. He didn’t speak a word to her and took her in the bedroom just like he would if she were still a working girl. She worried that this was how he still thought of her, not as a girlfriend, lover, and future wife, but as a prostitute there for his sexual enjoyment and little else. Regardless of this overpowering feeling, Candice wanted to sit down and have a chat with her children about their new life and how they felt about it. Right up until they moved out of the big house, Candice had been estranged from them, due to some of her more bizarre outbursts, so she had never really got to speak to them. She missed them, missed the fun they used to have and the way they banded together like the three musketeers in the old days before she met Bonnie. Now she just wanted to be close to them again and be a better mother. She felt that without the stress of her work, which turned her into a raving lunatic, she would be able to love them again and they would be able to feel the same for her. She understood why Marcus had the housekeeper take them to school on this day, but she would dearly have liked to do it herself if she could and to talk with them about the changes in all their lives.
    When they arrived home, the girls were chatting to one another and laughing, but when they saw their mother, their mood turned more sombre and they even looked a little frightened of her. Candice so wanted to show them that she had changed and that things were going to be good again, so she led them to the kitchen bench, sat them down, and got them all a bowl of ice cream from the freezer. To this she added chocolate sauce, and she sat down with them with a smile they hadn’t seen for many months. She began the conversation, asking them about their day and all the usual things, and then she carefully began discussing how they were feeling about Marcus, the new house, the move, and all the things that had happened in the last few days.
    Sienna, always the first to speak her mind, was happy with the new arrangement as long as her mother was happy. Crystal thought Marcus was nice enough and that he had been lovely to them that morning when they sat down over breakfast. Candice was interested to know what they had talked about, and the girls just said that he didn’t want them to talk to anyone about their new life, that it would be better if no one knew where they lived for now, and that until they settled in and felt safe that he was happy for them to call him Marcus. Apparently, one day he hoped they would call him daddy, but for now, Marcus was fine. A small frown crossed Candice’s forehead as she thought about this man, who had confused her with his coldness at noon, even after he had told her children he’d like to be their daddy. It was early days yet, so Candice just nodded and said it sounded like he was lovely to them.
    Sienna and Crystal were eight years old now and were aware of many more things than before. They just wanted to be sure that everything would be all right, so they asked Candice if she was okay now. She said she was much better and that they didn’t need to worry about anything. The girls knew differently. They could see that their mum